Good Practice Models for Using TVET to Address Skill Shortages: A Case Study from Health

The process of establishing a vocational education and training (VET) ‘solution’ to address a skill shortage is key to the quality of the outcome for learners, workplaces, communities and the industry. The creative ‘solutions’ often are about job redesign, others about tapping into new student cohorts, while some take a skill ecosystem approach, addressing industry and community factors such as linkages between institutions and between workers and institutions. Characteristics of models likely to be effective in addressing skill shortages are: responsibility for addressing skills shortage is shared between the health sector, education and training organisations and government, with employers taking a proactive role; the training component is complemented by a focus on retention of workers; and models are either targeted at existing employees or identify a target group(s) who may not otherwise have considered a career in health.